HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation:

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM

 

HHS Designation of Additional Members of the 

Special Exposure Cohort 

under the 

Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 

Designating a Class of Employees from 

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos, New Mexico
HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation:

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM

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I. Designation 

I, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, designate the class 

of employees defined in Section II of this report for addition to the Special Exposure 

Cohort (SEC), as authorized under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

Compensation Program Act of 2000 (EEOICPA), 42 U.S.C. § 7384q.

___July 13, 2010___ ___[Signature on file]_________

Date Kathleen Sebelius

II. Employee Class Definition

All employees of the Department of Energy, its predecessor 

agencies, and their contractors and subcontractors who worked at 

the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico 

from March 15, 1943 through December 31, 1975, for a number of 

work days aggregating at least 250 work days, occurring either 

solely under this employment or in combination with work days 

within the parameters established for one or more other classes of 

employees in the Special Exposure Cohort.

III. Designation Criteria and Recommendations

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384q, for the class defined in Section II of this report, the 

Secretary has determined, and the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 

(Board) has recommended, that

(1) it is not feasible to estimate with sufficient accuracy the radiation dose that the 

class received; and

(2) there is a reasonable likelihood that such radiation dose may have 

endangered the health of members of the class.

The SEC final rule states in 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(1) that it is feasible in two situations 

to estimate the radiation dose that the class received with sufficient accuracy. First, 

the rule states that radiation doses may be estimated with sufficient accuracy if 

NIOSH has established that it has access to sufficient information to estimate the 

maximum radiation dose for every type of cancer for which radiation doses are 

reconstructed that could have been incurred under plausible circumstances by any 

member of the class. Alternatively, radiation doses may be estimated with sufficient 

accuracy if NIOSH has established that it has access to sufficient information to 

estimate the radiation doses of members of the class more precisely than a 

maximum dose estimate.

The Board, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384q, advised the Secretary to designate the 

class as an addition to the SEC in a letter received by the Secretary on June 16, 

2010. 
HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation:

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IV. Designation Findings

Feasibility of Estimating Radiation Doses with Sufficient Accuracy

The Secretary established the feasibility determination for the class of employees 

covered by this report based upon the findings summarized below.

• NIOSH determined that members of this class may have received internal and

external radiation exposures from fission and activation products, and other 

radionuclides.

• NIOSH previously determined in its evaluation of petition SEC-00051 that some 

LANL workers could have received intakes of radioactive materials that went 

unmonitored during the period from March 15, 1943 through December 31, 1975, 

and that limitations in the available data did not allow NIOSH to estimate such 

radiation doses with sufficient accuracy. In 2007, the Department of Health and 

Human Services (DHHS) designated the following class for inclusion in the SEC:

Employees of the Department of Energy (DOE), its predecessor 

agencies, or DOE contractors or subcontractors who were 

monitored or should have been monitored for radiological 

exposures while working in operational Technical Areas with a 

history of radioactive material use at the Los Alamos National 

Laboratory (LANL) for a number of work days aggregating at least 

250 work days from March 15, 1943 through December 31, 1975, or 

in combination with work days within the parameters established for 

one or more other classes of employees in the Special Exposure 

Cohort.

• NIOSH determined that due to undocumented worker movements across the site 

and limited claimant-specific information pertaining to work locations, it is unable 

to eliminate any specific worker from potential exposure scenarios based on 

assigned work location. NIOSH found that a determination cannot always be 

made as to whether or not an employee worked in Technical Areas with a history 

of radioactive material use, or whether an employee should have been monitored 

for radiological exposures. Accordingly, NIOSH determined that it is necessary 

to remove the area-specific and monitoring criteria from the class description and 

to expand the SEC class definition to include all areas of LANL, and all 

employees of DOE, its predecessor agencies, and their contractors and 

subcontractors who worked at LANL during the specified time period, regardless 

of monitoring. 

• Consistent with its findings associated with SEC-00051, NIOSH finds that it is not 

feasible to estimate, with sufficient accuracy, the total radiation dose received by 

members of the proposed class of employees. 

• Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(1), NIOSH determined that there is insufficient 

information to either: (1) estimate the maximum radiation dose, for every type of 

cancer for which radiation doses are reconstructed, that could have been 

incurred under plausible circumstances by any member of the class; or (2) 
HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation:

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estimate the radiation doses of members of the class more precisely than a 

maximum dose estimate.

• Although NIOSH found that it is not possible to completely reconstruct radiation 

doses for the proposed class, NIOSH intends to use any internal and external 

monitoring data that may become available for an individual claim (and that can 

be interpreted using existing NIOSH dose reconstruction processes or 

procedures). Therefore, dose reconstructions for individuals employed at LANL 

during the period from March 15, 1943 through December 31, 1975, but who do 

not qualify for inclusion in the SEC, may be performed using these data as 

appropriate.

• NIOSH finds that adequate reconstruction of medical dose is likely feasible using 

claimant-favorable assumptions in ORAUT-OTIB-0006, as well as LANL 

technical basis documents, collectively referred to as ORAUT-TKBS-0010.

• The Board concurred with the NIOSH evaluation and recommended the proposed

class for addition to the SEC.

 Health Endangerment

The Secretary established the health endangerment determination for the class of 

employees covered by this report based upon the findings summarized below.

(1) Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3), NIOSH established that there is a 

reasonable likelihood that such radiation doses may have endangered the 

health of members of the class. Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3)(ii), 

NIOSH specified a minimum duration of employment to satisfy this health 

endangerment criterion as “having been employed for a number of work days 

aggregating at least 250 work days within the parameters established for this 

class or in combination with work days within the parameters (excluding 

aggregate work day requirements) established for one or more other classes 

of employees in the Cohort.”

(2) NIOSH did not identify any evidence from the petitioners or from other 

resources that would establish that the class was exposed to radiation during 

a discrete incident likely to have involved exceptionally high-level exposures, 

such as a nuclear criticality incident, as defined under 42 C.F.R. § 

83.13(c)(3)(i). 

(3) The Board concurred with NIOSH’s finding that the health of the class may 

have been endangered and defined the class according to the 250-work day 

requirement specified under 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3)(ii).

V. Effect and Effective Date of Designation

The Secretary submits this report on the designation of one additional class to the 

SEC for review by Congress, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 7384l(14)(C)(ii) and 

7384q(c)(2)(A), as amended by the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-375 (codified as amended in 
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scattered sections of 42 U.S.C.). Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384l(14)(C)(ii), as 

amended by the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 

Year 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-375 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 42 

U.S.C.), the designation in this report will become effective 30 days after the date of 

this report’s submission to Congress “unless Congress otherwise provides.”

VI. Administrative Review of Designation

The health endangerment determination of the designation provided in this report 

may be subject to an administrative review within HHS, pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 

83.18(a). On the basis of such a review, if the Secretary decides to expand the class 

of employees covered by this designation, the Secretary would transmit a 

supplementary report to Congress providing the expanded employee class definition 

and the criteria and findings on which the decision was based.